


pit stop

by vagarius



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Day 4 - Secrets, Gen, Growing Up, Vignettes, he's a kid for part of it, in which kageyama has some medical thing where if he overexerts himself bad things happen, medical issue, sort of, tobio week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4861001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vagarius/pseuds/vagarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never knew hard work could be a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pit stop

**Author's Note:**

> kageyama used to play soccer in this it was the first very-endurance-reliant sport i could think of just go with it

His first memory takes place in a hospital bed, machines whirring, whispers filling the rest of the empty spaces. He's not in pain – at least, not _really_ – he's just, he's just so _tired,_ and he wants to go back to sleep, but everything's so _loud,_ and the notion of sleep seems so _far._ He closes his eyes, anyway, and focuses on the darkness of his eyelids and the feel of the too-clean sheets.

If anyone notices that he's awake, they don't say anything. Not to him.

(The things they do say to him sit in his throat like pills – things like _take it easy_ and _continuing soccer is a bad idea_ and _you should limit your amount of physical activity,_ and it feels so much like they're packing him into a box getting shipped to nowhere that he's not sure how to react. In the end, he simply doesn't.)

-

He starts going to soccer games after school, a few weeks after being let out of the hospital, because he's apparently some sort of eight-year-old masochist who likes the feel of grass under his hands and the sorta-kinda stabby feeling in his gut.

The ground between the field and the gym is warm with sunshine, and the air around it is only slightly chilled from the autumn air. Kageyama doesn't know who's winning or losing, at this point, and finds that he doesn't particularly care. He lies down. Rolling onto his side, he spots something white against the dull gray of the gym wall. He crawls across the grass as best he can towards the object.

It's a volleyball.

He grabs it off the ground, leans against the wall, and tosses it up into the air –

_maybe there's more to this_

\- and that's the first secret he keeps, a memory that would be long forgotten if not for the volleyball under his bed.

(His second secret.)

-

Elementary school feels like a blur of school and grass and doctors' visits, and maybe it is, but come the winter before junior high, it becomes a blur of volleyball and volleyball and volleyball.

It takes a lot of convincing (downright begging) to get to this point of no return, selling his heart to something he was told he shouldn't do. His coach knows this, knows that he shouldn't be doing this, and tells him on the first day of practice to stop whenever he needs to.

He doesn't _want_ to stop, though. He wants to keep going, wants his parents to stop looking at him like some sort of fragile burden, wants his teammates to see him as a player, and not the kid who sits out during practice all the time. He wants a lot of things, and it's probably selfish of him to want so much, but the things he wants are things he can work for, so he does.

-

His teammates don't seem to have the same mindset as him, most days, don't seem to have the same fire burning beneath their skin to just _do,_ except maybe Oikawa. He's the one Kageyama wants to learn from.

But Oikawa might also hate him, fire or not, and it makes Kageyama angrier than he thinks he has any right to be.

Whenever Oikawa refuses to teach him, he wants to scream, but not at him. He wants to scream _to_ him. He wants to tell him that _no, I don't need to be as good as you, I just need to be able to do it, IneedtoIneedtoIneedto,_ but Kageyama knows that things like that often don't translate very well, especially coming from him, so he simply squares his shoulders and asks again the next practice.

-

The numbness overpowers the burn, and for that, he is grateful. But once the burning is gone, and he can breathe, the numbness feels more like an ache that spreads everywhere, binding him to his latest game, his _last_ game, and it hurts a lot more than the burn in his lungs ever did.

He's grateful for that, too, because it gives him something to focus on. On what he did wrong.

He knows his teammates dislike him; that much is obvious. It's also obvious that, at least in that last game, none of them even attempted to reach their full potential. Kageyama thought that working as hard as he could would inspire his teammates to do the same, but it remains a fact that no one seems to have the same drive, share the same feelings towards this sport that saved then subsequently broke him.

It occurs to Kageyama that his own hard work might not even be considered hard work at all – he's hindered, after all, according to his parents and doctors and most other respectable adults. He hadn't realized that this might extend to people his own age.

Maybe they didn't see Kageyama working as hard as he could – maybe they saw him working slightly more than the average player, or even slightly _less._ They didn't know how he felt in practices, didn't feel the way the air struggled in his throat, or the way his heart rattled in his chest, or the way his arms told him to _stopstopstop._ They didn't feel any of that, they only _saw,_ and Kageyama realizes that his best probably isn't any better in other people's eyes. He can't inspire people, much less his teammates. Not unless he tries even harder.

(He never knew hard work could be a secret.)

-

Karasuno is seven parts supportive, three parts idiot, and one part smug bastard.

It's nice.

They're accepting, at Karasuno, but Kageyama works harder, anyway. Works past boundaries set in sand, erases them with a rub of his sneakers when they don't quite get washed away by the shore.

And if he starts wheezing in the bathroom stall after practices and races and walking home after school, no matter. He can pull through it as long as he tries.

-

"Why didn't you tell us?" is the first thing he hears. The second thing he hears is the _beepbeepbeep_ of a heart monitor and the familiar whirr of machines, and he distantly wonders when he turned eight again.

The sheets don't feel as cleans as he remembers, and the voices are louder, and he hasn't opened his eyes yet, but he can feel the telltale brush of hair against his face, of someone who has a different concept of personal space.

"Hinata?" he mumbles, because it makes sense. When he opens his eyes, though, he finds himself staring into Nishinoya's indignant eyes, stray piece of hair flopping between them.

Kageyama expects Nishinoya to back off, but instead, his face gets impossibly closer. Kageyama has to cross his eyes. "What makes you think I was Hinata, huh? Was it my height?" Nishinoya says, sounding more exasperated than angry.

"I can't tell what your height is from here, Noya-senpai," Kageyama replies instead of answering. Nishinoya finally leans back, smiling, hands on hips. He mumbles something about informing the others of his awakening, and trots off and out of the room. Kageyama looks around and spots Sugawara in another chair, farther away. Sugawara smiles.

"What happened?" Kageyama asks, after realizing that he doesn't know. He has an idea, of course, but he wants to make sure it's true. Or be lucky and find out that it's not true.

Sugawara walks over to the bed, still smiling. "You passed out during practice." True, then. How disappointing. "The doctor said it was probably overexertion."

Kageyama looks away. Some of the floor tiles are pink. It doesn't really fit with the white room. "Yeah," he breathes, somewhat guilty, "That happens."

"Why didn't you tell any of us?" Sugawara questions, though it sounds more like he's wondering out loud. He continues to smile, softly, and Kageyama feels like a little kid for the second time these past few minutes.

"I – " _My best wasn't good enough,_ "I don't know. I guess it was a secret."

"Secrets don't just _exist,_ Kageyama-kun." Footsteps pad down the hallway. "They're only there if you make it so."

"Oh," Kageyama says as the footsteps reach the door.

-

He goes to volleyball practice, afterschool, and sometimes he needs to sit for a while. No one complains, except Hinata, occasionally, when he's impatient for tosses and bursting with energy to the seams.

His team understands that he needs to rest better than he does himself. If his breathing gets too heavy, or he stumbles too hard, he is sent to bench immediately. Nishinoya often insists on carrying him, despite being over a head shorter and some kilos lighter. They usually end up walking together, Kageyama's back slightly hunched with his arm draped over Nishinoya's shoulder. Hinata stops racing him, to and from places, even when Kageyama can see him thrumming with the urge to run, but on those days, Kageyama makes sure to help him practice receives during lunch. None of it hurts, like Kageyama expected it to; it feels nice, like when he first arrived at Karasuno, but more pronounced.

Though it's weird, not having secrets.

(Not even the volleyball under his bed – his fellow first years found that one, after invading his house before his first practice back, along with his old soccer ball. He's pretty glad he dropped the sport.)

-


End file.
